


Out of Kindness I Suppose

by Lines_of_Pain_and_Glory



Category: Leverage, White Collar
Genre: I did not write case fic, I wanted to write case fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-08 05:36:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3197345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lines_of_Pain_and_Glory/pseuds/Lines_of_Pain_and_Glory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The only thing more dangerous than a bad guy who thinks he’s above the law is a good guy who thinks he’s above the law.”</p><p>Intrigued, Neal trails Peter as he strides down the hall.  “I thought according to you all criminals were bad guys.”</p><p>“They are.”  Peter sighs, stopping for more coffee.  “I knew Nate Ford back in the IYS days.  He used to be a good guy, a really good guy.  I know you think I’m too…hidebound sometimes, but that’s the bottom of the slippery slope, Neal.  It’s there but for the grace of god.”</p><p>Neal raises an eyebrow.  “So this is personal.”</p><p>Peter looks at Neal sharply.  “No, this is my job.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. May

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate Timeline, I’m going to say this sort of lines up late Season 2 for both shows, but things get very AU  
> Title from “Pancho and Lefty”  
> Rated for later chapters

December

“You expect me to believe none of this was real?” he demands.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Caffrey. I wish that there had been another way.” Nate turns away, unable to face the anger in those blue eyes, so familiar, like looking in a mirror.

“You’re lying.” His voice is colder than the winter air. He should resist when Neal seizes him, pushes him against the railing. “You’re lying.” Neal repeats softly against his lips. “You wanted this as much as I did.”

 

Eight Months Ago

“And how exactly are you proposing we pull this off with the FBI all up in our business?” Hardison asks.

“We use them to our advantage.”

“He thinks he can flip the CI.” Sophie’s tone says she doesn’t agree with that assessment. 

Parker shrugs. “He’s a thief. If Nate can’t sell him on the whole ‘altruism’ thing,” she still makes it sound like a foreign word she isn’t sure she’s pronouncing right, “we buy him.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure his loyalty is up for sale.” Sophie flips through the surveillance footage. “Look at him and his handler. That’s a love sick puppy if I’ve ever seen one.”

“I’m banking on that.”

They all stare at him with varying ratios of horror and amusement or in Parker’s case confusion and confusion. 

“What?” He smirks at Sophie. “You always think you can do my job better than I can.”

“Wait, he’s not…oh, this is going to be bad. I can’t watch.” Parker puts her hands over her eyes.

“No, get the popcorn. This is going to be classic.” He’s counting Hardison as onboard even if it’s only in hopes of schadenfreude.

Eliot cuts right to the chase. “What does he think he knows about pretending to be gay?”

If it’s anything like pretending to be straight? Quite a bit. Deflect. “Does having seen an episode of ‘Project Runway’ count?”

They all groan in unison.

“Come on, people, these are the jokes.”

“Yeah, you know what’s a joke? That you think you can pull that.” Eliot jerks his thumb at the guy on the screen, who is, yes, attractive, very attractive, objectively speaking, of course. Unorthodox, the order in which Peter Burke chooses to tackle the FBI’s most wanted list, should he be flattered?

Sophie makes a noncommittal noise. “The Fed’s no looker either, is he?”

“Now that was uncalled for.” 

In the harsh light of morning, otherwise known as peak sobriety, he’s starting to see a few minor potential flaws in this plan, but it’s become a matter of pride.

 

“You really want to stake your career on this clown, Boss?” Diana folds her arms, glowering up at the screen in the conference room.

Neal’s inclined to agree. Mozzie says Ford’s crew is the Suits’ cursed Hope Diamond. Then again, Moz says aliens built the pyramids.

“Have you read this economic justice garbage?” Diana gestures at her laptop. “He’s half a manifesto past nutcase.”

Peter snorts. “That’s a judge’s problem.”

“No, it’s ours if you think we can take him down the same way as some guy forging bonds to make a buck.”

Neal resents that. “Just because I like nice things, I automatically must not be an ideolog?”

They both give him the same deadpan expression.

“That’s handing a guy who already thinks he’s a martyr a cross,” Diana continues as if Neal hadn’t interrupted.

“You don’t actually buy that he believes any of this?” So he’s a con artist with an unusual PR strategy. Are they not seeing the expensive cars and the perfectly tailored suits and that smirk? If that guy believes in anything, Neal will eat his hat.

“Yeah, I do,” Peter says flatly, snapping the file in his hand shut in that way that says this discussion is over, “and the only thing more dangerous than a bad guy who thinks he’s above the law is a good guy who thinks he’s above the law.”

Intrigued, Neal trails Peter as he strides down the hall. “I thought according to you all criminals were bad guys.”

“They are.” Peter sighs, stopping for more coffee. “I knew Nate Ford back in the IYS days. He used to be a good guy, a really good guy. I know you think I’m too…hidebound sometimes, but that’s the bottom of the slippery slope, Neal. It’s there but for the grace of god.”

Neal raises an eyebrow. “So this is personal.”

Peter looks at Neal sharply. “No, this is my job.”

 

Neal’s fascinated. Peter sees something of himself in this guy, but what Neal sees are piercing blue eyes and exquisite taste in art. The man’s even almost pulling off a fedora. Somehow he thinks Peter must hate him for slightly different reasons than the ones Neal’s starting to.

He can’t resist strolling in for a closer look, feigning casualness, a paper tucked under his arm.

“Who’s winning?”

“Black. Far too often.” He spins the board, seeming to spare no attention for Neal.

“Maybe you should try playing against someone besides yourself.” Neal slides into the seat across from him.

“You think you can beat me, Mr. Caffrey?”

Yes, Neal does. You don’t show up at fifty and start on top. That’s not how the con game works. Still he needs to tread carefully. He flashes a mollifying grin. “You got something to lose by letting me try? Because I’m just running down the clock.” He gestures to his ankle, crossing it over his other thigh.

That earns him a pointed glance. “Word from Victorville’s you’re not a patient man.” 

Neal arches an eyebrow. “What else do you think you know about me?” 

“Not enough,” he holds the pause a little too long, the inflection off, “yet.” He starts resetting the board. “What’s your pleasure?”

It’s a test. “Hasn’t always worked out so well for me in the past, but my money’s still on black.”

“I could have said the same thing about white.” 

 

“Overall? Not a bad effort,” he says, checkmating Neal’s king. “For a guy who wasn’t trying to win.”

Neal shrugs off the accusation. He isn’t sure he could have won if he was trying. Neal has natural talent, but Nate plays chess…like a guy who hasn’t had anything better to do on a lot of Saturday nights. “Glad I could keep you amused.” Neal glances coquettishly up through his lashes, firmly squashing down the twinge of guilt. The signs were all there, lurking just under the surface, in gazes held too long that darted away guiltily when Neal met them, in twitches at a licked lip or a subtle innuendo. 

He just studies Neal for a long time, his eyes narrowing. It’s not enough to make Neal sweat, he’s used to scrutiny, but there’s something Neal can tell he’s missing, some significance to the piece he’s turning over and over in his hand, not a pawn, the bishop.

“This is just business, Mr. Caffrey.” That’s the second time today Neal’s heard something along those lines.

“I don’t do business with strangers.” Neal sets his jaw holding eye contact until Nate’s the one who looks away. 

The nod of satisfaction is almost imperceptible. “Neither do I.” 

 

Neal’s still sitting there in the sun in Central Park, mulling over what the hell just happened, when Peter accosts him.

“I knew you were going to do this! Just stay away, Neal. He’s going to try to reel you in.”

This is personal, but how personal? “Maybe…or he was just hitting on me.” Neal thinks he achieved off-handed nicely.

Peter nearly spits out coffee. “What! Nate Ford? No way.” He shakes his head like he’s trying to convince himself. “You’re wrong, Neal.”

Neal’s not wrong. He’s also not staying away. Peter needs his help on this case more than most.

 

“We’ve got to quit meeting like this. Peter is going to think we’re up to something.” Neal gives him his most dazzling smile, the one he usually saves for Peter when he gets suspicious, as they reach for the same bottle of wine.

Nate smirks back at him. “Would he be wrong?” 

Neal raises an eyebrow as if to say, “Would he?” In the space of a week they’ve already run into each other: twice getting coffee, once at a gallery opening, once at the opera, and Neal knows he only arranged half of those meetings.

Nate gives a defeated sigh. “I only drink Scotch.” Beat. “Given a choice.”

Something about his sheepish expression makes Neal burst out in genuine laughter. “I think Mendi is a hack.”

“And I thought I was the only one who wasn’t getting it.” He chuckles weakly too. Just as the pause starts to become awkward, he continues.

Of course he has reservations at that new place just off Neal’s radius that Elizabeth keeps trying not to rave about in front of him.

“I’d love to.” Neal interjects smoothly once he realizes Nate has no intention of ever actually asking him a question.

“Great--”

“And I can’t. The FBI keeps me on a tight leash,” he offers at the quickly hidden look of chagrin.

“Oh, I can take care of that. I mean, if it wasn’t just an excuse.” His expression goes back to chagrin, calculatedly this time. Oh, this guy is good. Completely insane, yes, but brilliant. The best way to con someone who’s as good or better at reading people than you are at lying is to make sure they can’t get a read on what you’re like when you’re not uncomfortable.

 

“I’m starting to think you just enjoy my company.” Neal teases, digging into the sore spot, to watch Nate twitch. Normally, he’d consider this beneath him, but if Nate has other weaknesses (being able to drink the Bratva under the table isn’t so much a weakness as a strength with unfortunate implications), he keeps them better guarded.

“And I’m starting to think you’re just trying to make someone jealous,” he counters. “We should send the guys in the van hors d’oeuvres. I feel bad for wasting their time.”

Neal takes a careful look out of the corner of his eye. “That’s not the FBI.”

“No, Interpol.” He raises his glass nonchalantly. “I’m sure you two have crossed paths before.”

Neal doesn’t bother to cover the signs of fight or flight response. It’s a guilty man’s reaction, but, for once, he’s not trying to convince anyone he’s innocent.

“Hey, I disclosed my baggage. You couldn’t have mentioned this earlier?” No wonder Peter’s in a bad mood. He hates a turf war, especially if he isn’t winning.

“The situation is evolving.” Nate’s still gazing over Neal’s shoulder, with that squinty look. The words, that tone, and that expression are all too much of a dead-ringer for Peter to be intentional, too heavy-handed.

“Apologies. Another time?” He stands.

Neal shakes his head, he should say no. Instead, he spreads his hands magnanimously as if to present all of Midtown. “You know where to find me.”


	2. June

“Tell me about the Renoir.”

“Which one?” Now he’s just bragging.

“The landscape.”

There’s an odd quirk to his lips. “You aren’t going to be impressed if I tell you.”

“Indulge me.”

“I knew a guy who knew a guy. There was a time you couldn’t get anything insured by IYS forged without me hearing about it. At that point it was paperwork to trance the money.” Nate almost smiles.

Neal glances at him sharply. “You were always planning to flip.” No one keeps a network that must have rivaled Mozzie’s to make fifty grand a year protecting other people's art.

“I tried to plan for everything.” The emphasis that should have fallen on “everything” instead fell on “tried.”

Neal rests his chin on his knuckles and his elbow on his knee, staring into the van Gogh, “Wheat Field with Cypresses.”

Everyone thinks they know the story, of how Nate Ford became a bad guy, and, like most stories, it starts to fall apart the closer you look at it.

“Sometimes God has other plans for us.” 

“I didn’t know you were a religious man.”

“I’m not; you are.” That’s the monkey wrench in what should be a simple con, that internal struggle like a restless tide pulling him in and pushing him away, and Neal’s just glad he didn’t mention that thing about the hat out loud in front of Peter because he hates the taste of felt.

That’s definitely a smile, tugging at the corner of Nate’s mouth. “What else do you think you know about me?”

“Enough.” Neal lays a hand on his thigh unexpectedly.

“Mr. Caffrey--”

“If we’re going to be friends, you should call me Neal.”

“Move that hand any higher and I will call you something else.” Before Neal can decide if the rough tone in his ear is a challenge or a warning, Nate’s slipped out of his grasp.

 

“It’s too quiet.” Peter glares at the stack of paperwork collecting dust on his desk that it’s starting to look like he’ll have no choice but to do.

Neal shrugs. “You mind if I cut out early?”

“What for?” Peter asks suspiciously.

“A shower,” he answers honestly. It’s not even July yet and already the sticky heat is oppressive even in Neal’s lightest linen suits while the false artic of the FBI’s air conditioning leaves him shivering, sweat chilling on his back. If Nate calls, and he might not, but if Nate calls to not ask if Neal wants to get drinks, it won’t be until about ten.

Peter groans, leaning back in his chair. “No, if I have to suffer for another half-hour, so do you.”

Neal settles back down dutifully.

“I was kidding. Go.” Peter waves a hand dismissively. “I’ll probably be here late anyway.”

Neal raises an eyebrow at him not budging. “You’re going to let Elizabeth’s pot roast get dry so you can sign paperwork?” He doesn’t pause long enough to let him answer. “Peter, let me help you.” He’s working blind here.

Peter’s nostrils flare. “Is that what you were trying to do, letting him buy you 400 dollar a bottle wine and putting your hand on his knee, Neal, help me?”

Neal can’t conceal the shock quickly enough.

“You really thought I didn’t know?” Peter snorts derisively. Honestly? Yes, because if Peter knew, Neal would have expected him to try to do something to put a stop to it. “I don’t trust you because you never give me a reason.”

Neal stares back at him coldly for a moment before he turns to go. “I’d hate to fail to live up to your expectations, Peter.”

 

Confronting the subject of an ongoing investigation just to confront him goes against everything Peter learned at Quantico and everything he’s learned since, but he sees the way Neal whistles and drinks twice as much coffee in the morning and he worries about more than building a case that will stand up in court.

“You’re just trying to screw with me, aren’t you?”

“I’m not trying, Mr. Burke.”

Oh, yeah, he’s succeeding big time. Peter has to count to ten to keep from snapping, “Agent Burke.” He used to respect Nate, but Peter never liked him. He’s insufferably smug on any side of the law.

“That’s the only thing you’re going to be succeeding at. You’re kidding yourself if you think Neal’s going to help you. Neal Caffrey only helps himself.” 

“We both know that’s not true.” The condescending tone makes Peter’s teeth hurt. “But even if it were? I can help him in ways you can’t, areas where your hands are tied so to speak, Agent Burke.”

The choice of title is deliberate. He could be talking about something else, but that smile is downright leering. Peter breaks into a cold sweat. Neal is his CI. Even the appearance of impropriety could cost him his job and send Neal back to prison. He’d like to believe Nate wouldn’t stoop to that (guys who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones), but pettiness and blatant hypocrisy seem to be his new M.O.

“Listen, Ford,” he growls, “if you break the law, I will catch you. If you try to take him down with you, I will break your neck.”

He has the audacity to laugh. “I guess that must sound like a threat to a guy who thinks ‘a higher power’ means the State of New York.”

That’s what gets under Peter’s skin, not just the smugness, the holier-than-thou self-righteousness. “Yeah, you talk to your guy and I’ll talk to mine. We’ll see which one of them has more power when it comes to issuing warrants.”

He snorts. “I think you’re forgetting: I worked with law-enforcement for twenty-five years. If you’re talking to me? You have nothing and you’re desperate.”

“No, I think you’re forgetting: I work with a criminal every day. If you’re talking back? You’re cocky,” the choice of word is deliberate, “and it’s not the first mistake you’ve made.”

Peter walks away feeling better than he has in a month.

 

“Alright, now, I’m just asking as a fan. How are you planning to run a job in the middle of an interagency merdier?” Handing the Suits their White Wale would mean freedom for now, figuring out how Nate does it would mean freedom forever. He has everyone from White Collar to Homeland Security to Interpol to the NYPD chasing their tails. Even Peter is frustrated, but it’s more than that.

“I’m not. You know the key to every con is misdirection.”

Neal grins. “Exactly. You expect me to believe you couldn’t find any internationally known art thieves who didn’t work for the FBI to just hang around the Met with you?”

“As I recall, you introduced yourself as a guy with time on his hands. Something changed?”

Yes, actually. If Neal’s being honest with himself, any sense of urgency he might have felt to help Peter close this case evaporated the minute he found out Alec Hardison appears to be every bit as talented as rumor claims.

And Neal’s anklet is just the beginning, symbolic of how easily Nate can bend the world to his whims. It’s all a show of course, carefully choreographed to impress, but Neal’s impressed and he’s not impressed easily.

People who haven’t given Neal the time of day since he’s worked with the FBI are popping out of the woodwork and they’re all asking the same questions, some more subtly than others: why is he here and how soon is he leaving? Everyone who’s anyone is laying low, watching and waiting. That’s impressive, how close to a standstill the whisper of one man’s name can bring both sides of New York City Crime. Neal can’t help wondering if maybe Peter went in over his head this time.

“Because I’d understand if you were in a rush,” Nate continues. “Having Peter Burke breathing down your neck isn’t a comfortable position.” 

“Really? I wouldn’t know,” Neal purrs, swirling the wine in his glass. He’s given up on getting what’s really going on here out of Peter, but that doesn’t mean he’s given up.

The level of insight in those eyes is disquieting. “Look, Kid, I know where your loyalty lies. It’s none of my business what your…arrangement is.”

The directness, so rare from him, catches Neal off-guard.

“But you came to me,” he continues before Neal gets his wits back about him. “Don’t expect me to believe that has nothing to do with Mr. Burke.” He finishes off his Scotch. Yes, in their line of work whoever makes the approach is automatically suspect, so the fact that they’re even still having this conversation tells Neal that as much as it may look like Nate’s about to walk away, he can’t.

“He says you used to be one of the good guys,” Neal muses to his back, watching how the muscles in his shoulders tighten under the silk/wool blend.

He hesitates before sliding back down into the booth, next to Neal this time. “We had a fundamental methodological disagreement. He believes good guys follow the rules and I believe that’s what bad guys count on when they make them.” 

Now, they’re finally getting somewhere. Neal raises an eyebrow at him, taking a delicate sip of Riesling. “I believe every guy’s the good guy in his own mind.”

“The only thing more dangerous than a bad guy who thinks he’s above the law is a good guy who thinks he’s above the law,” what Peter was trying to say was, “Benevolent dictatorship is the most insidious form of tyranny.”

“Touché.” Neal’s surprised by the self-deprecating little shrug, the note of bitterness. 

“Peter and I have a history,” understatement of the year, “you’re asking me to trust you based on what?”

“You don’t need to trust me.” Nate traces patterns in the rings of condensation beading on the lacquered wood of the table. “Business gets done between parties who don’t trust each other every day. You want to trust me.” There’s a hint of amusement in the eyes suddenly focused on Neal’s. “Maybe you should trust your instincts. What’s your plan? You get the anklet off, you make that ‘one last big score,’ and then what?”

Neal decides to hedge. “I thought I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.”

“This is the bridge, Mr. Caffrey. You can pick a side or you can join me in the middle.” 

“Is this an invitation for one?” It’s what he’d ask if he was really considering it.

“Are we talking about this Dentist I keep hearing about?”

Neal glances at him in surprise. “I haven’t heard that pseudonym in a while.”

“Apparently, your friend is something of a folk hero in the system. I have a hacker and a thief at home demanding autographs.”

Later when Neal tries to pinpoint an exact moment he started to like Nate, it’s that moment, when he mentioned his team with that half-exasperated half-indulgent look. They’re his family. You don’t introduce your family on a first date if you want it to go well. 

“It is an inspirational story.”

“Detroit to Yale Law and back to Three-card Monte on the street corner? Depends on your aspirations. If half of it’s a true story, he’d fit right in.”

Neal grins. “Half sounds about right.”

Nate frowns. “That was…easy.” He doesn’t trust “easy.”

“I’m not saying ‘yes.’” Neal pushes his glass away. “I’m just not saying ‘no.’”

Nate leans back. “You expect me to ‘sell’ you what most thieves would kill for?”

Neal shrugs. “I don’t see you offering them a deal.”

Nate eyes him speculatively. “Fine, here’s the beginning and the end of my pitch: Peter Burke can say whatever the hell he wants about me, what he can’t say is that I don’t take care of my people. I do. What I’m offering is to make you untouchable.” 

“All for the low, low price of selling out the only honest guy I know in law-enforcement?” Neal lets the bitterness seep in slowly. It occurs to him that maybe he makes it too easy for Peter, does the things he won’t do that need to be done so he never has to make those hard choices, never has to confront the fact that the system is broken. Just because Nate’s full of shit (and he often is, bitching about out of touch Wall Street fat cats while wearing Armani and knocking back Scotch that’s older than Neal), doesn’t make him wrong. Neal wants to believe Peter would do the right thing if he had to, that his compassion would win out over his fear of becoming a well-intentioned tyrant. 

“My beef isn’t with guys like Burke. I didn’t pick this fight. He did.” Real anger flares in Nate’s eyes before the unreadable mask settles back into place. “Like I said, I protect my team.” He grabs his hat. “Think about it.”


	3. July

“Where have you been?” Mozzie demands when he comes home again after it’s light.

“Out.” Neal doesn’t feel an obligation to explain himself.

“Are you sleeping with him?”

“Who?”

“Machiavelli!” Moz glares. “Nathan Ford.” Not a bad nickname.

“No!” It doesn’t come out sounding as indignant as Neal intended. “He’s going to try to reel you in.” But Nate’s the opposite of charming. He keeps Neal, “Mr. Caffrey,” at arm’s length. He’s too conflicted, much too thoughtful to match the picture Peter tried to paint of an arrogant, self-righteous, law unto himself. Sure on the surface he’s all self-assurance bordering on hubris, another Adler, who thinks he’s master of the universe, five times smarter than the smartest guy in the room. Just like Neal’s a shallow self-seeking playboy...and Peter’s just a regular Joe Everyman, beer and baseball and apple pie. Appearances are meticulously crafted to deceive. 

“Neal, I don’t care whose side we’re on, just that you tell me…wait, what am I saying?” Mozzie slaps himself on the forehead. “One side has more money than god, all the coolest spy toys, and the other side is the Suits!”

“Moz, when something sounds too good to be true? It is.” Neal shouldn’t have to remind Mozzie of that.

“Two months, Neal.” Moz gives a him look. “What could you possibly have access to that he couldn’t get a dozen other ways?”

“Peter,” Neal answers without hesitation. Just putting a knife in his back isn’t good enough for Nate, he wants it to be Neal’s hand holding it. This is personal. 

Moz sighs. “I know how you feel about Peter, but, Neal, you’ve got to start thinking about the future. Once that anklet comes off, either you go straight and narrow forever or Peter puts you back in prison or…”

“Or?” Neal swallows hard around the lump in his throat. He knows what the third option is.

“Or you make sure he’s not in a position to be able to do that.” Mozzie lays a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “I know this is coming sooner than you wanted to have to make that decision but, Neal, this might be our best chance.”

 

“Where have you been?” Sophie demands, hands on her hips.

“Where do you think I’ve been?” he says irritably. He shouldn’t have to explain to her that, for the moment, the appearances he’s trying to keep up have changed.

“Not where you were supposed to be.” Hardison looks angrier than Sophie. “I know I make this look easy, but keeping your boy toy off his leash isn’t at the top of my list of things I want to be doing at 4 am on a Saturday morning.”

“Well, don’t let me keep you away from your cartoons and World of Warcraft any longer.” Nate indicates the door still open behind him with a flourish, heading for the Scotch.

“Don’t.” Sophie glares at him warningly, stepping between them, a placating hand on Hardison’s arm.

“You like playing sugar daddy so much, Nate? Do it on your own time.” Hardison slams the door behind him. 

Sophie folds her arms, still glaring as if to say, “Well?”

“I’m working on it.”

“No, you’re stalling.” Her expression softens. “You like him.”

“Of course, I like him. He’s a nice kid.” You know, for a thief. He’d have to be in order for seriously-needs-to-do-something-about-that-stick-up-his-ass Peter Burke to have noticed. He can’t help but admire how fiercely loyal Neal is even if it isn’t to the right things (unlike principles, people can always stab you in the back), but that isn’t all Nate likes about him. He likes Neal’s sense of humor, his smile, the way he smells, the easy way he touches Nate, an arm slung carelessly over his shoulders, their legs brushing as they sit next to each other. He’s afraid that’s what Sophie meant. It looks too much like pity in her eyes.

“Darling, the kindest thing you can do now is be done with it.” He isn’t sure if she means the kindest thing for Neal or for himself.

 

It occurs to Neal as he glares at his silent phone (because you don’t call Nate, Nate calls you) that he hasn’t gotten laid in a very long time. Well, maybe not a very long time for some people, but a very long time for Neal. He scrolls through the numbers for a minute before he throws the thing down in disgust. He knows what he wants tonight.

He shucks off his clothes, leaving a careless trial to the bed. They’ll wrinkle. He’ll deal with it later. He falls back on top of the comforter, letting out a sigh. The fantasy is the same as always, brown eyes smoldering with anger, possessiveness, Peter bending him over his desk, growling low in his throat, “You belong to me. You seem to need a reminder.” Neal strokes himself roughly, trying to imagine his fingers thicker, blunter, calloused in different places. It isn’t quite enough. He starts over, patiently working his fingers inside himself until he can touch the spot that sends a shudder through him, his body arching off the bed, but he’s still hovering on the edge in frustration. Then it comes to him unbidden, troubled blue eyes, a wince like Neal’s touch is agony, and a whisper in his ear, too unsure to really be seductive, “Think about it, Kid, me and you?” and Neal comes undone.

He collapses, panting, running a shaking hand through his hair. That’s real, absurd and sweet and tragic on a man his age, the almost schoolboyishness, the way he blushes, but can’t seem to bring himself to pull away, so long as Neal’s holding his hand under the table or in the privacy of a theatre box. That’s real. Neal knows it deep down in that place you have to listen to and trust to stay alive as a con man. 

 

“Sorry, I--” The brush of cheeks feels like he was thinking about kissing him and changed his mind at the last second.

Neal interrupts, “I don’t want to talk about work tonight.”

Nate pulls back, startled blue eyes searching Neal’s. “If…why are you here?” His grip on Neal’s bicep, the only point of contact left between them, tightens. 

“You know why.” Neal doesn’t bother with any of the tricks. It’s true and he’s good enough to know that.

They’re both unusually quiet, the silence not quite companionable.

“Do you just want to get a room?” It’s not smooth at all, but smooth never seems to get him anywhere with Nate, they just slide right past each other, and blunt? Well, he hasn’t bolted yet, so Neal plunges gamely ahead. “I don’t want to take you back to my place because of the FBI, so do you just want to go to a hotel?”

 

“I have to tell you something.” Nate stays back pressed against the door after closing it like he’s trying to stay as far out of the room as possible.

Neal rests his hands on his shoulders and his breath speeds up to nearly hyperventilating. “I know you’ve never done this.” 

Wide blue eyes stare into Neal’s with shock and relief and guilt.

Neal feels a pang of empathy. He isn’t really out as bi. Mozzie knows. Kate knew and she didn’t care. He loved her perhaps the most for that. Other girls ran, so many that that became his M.O. if he needed to get rid of one: just come out to her. He thinks Peter must know after all the time he spent tracking Neal, trying to learn everything about him, but it’s not something they’ve ever had a conversation about…except perhaps they did on that one night in June in Peter’s office when he’d looked at Neal with such contempt and asked, “Is that what you were trying to do?” No one else at the FBI knows, not because Neal’s trying to hide that in particular, but because he makes it a habit not to give them more information than they need. It isn’t very hard for him to extrapolate what it must feel like to be that alone.

“Why me?”

Nate laughs humorlessly. “I tried to tell myself I needed you for the job…but look at you.” And for once, he does, like he’s trying to commit every detail of Neal without a shirt to memory before it’s too late.

Neal can’t find any hint of deception or evasion in the words or in his expression. It’s the brutally honest answer of a man who already thinks he’s lost. Neal makes the decision in that moment.

“You get me a day’s head start and I’ll get you whatever you want from the FBI. If you still want to do this later, come find me…but you don’t have to worry about me coming looking for you if you don’t.” Because that’s building castles in the air, pretending they could be hitting The Louvre arm in arm this time next year (he suspects Nate would rather spend the rest of his life in supermax than risk anyone finding out he was sleeping with a man), but Neal was never the intended mark of that con. He marvels, perhaps for the last time, at just how good Nate is. The best lies are the ones you convince yourself of.

He kisses Neal the way a man dying of thirst would drink, then slumps back against the door, looking away guiltily. “I’ll probably lose my nerve.”

Neal’s heart aches the way it did for Kate, the way it still does for Peter. “Don’t,” he whispers, kissing Nate again, softly, slowly this time, “I like you.” Enough to do this later, when Nate can’t tell himself that it meant nothing, that it was sex for services. That streak of insecurity is centimeters wide, barely a crack in the façade, but oceans deep. Neal wants freedom more than anything, but he’s not going to let anyone, not Nate and not Peter and Mozzie, who’ve both already accused him, believe he sold his soul for it. Neal’s a thief; he’s not that.

“Don’t mean that.” Nate keeps getting half-way to leaving and kissing him again. “Please, God, don’t mean that.”

 

Peter barges through his door and then stops abruptly giving him that look of disgust. “Well, I guess you already know.”

The bottom falls out of Neal’s stomach.

“I thought we were a team. I thought you were my friend. I thought…” Peter grits his teeth as if trying not to let words he’ll regret escape. “You can stop playing dumb, Neal. All the FBI’s systems were compromised thirty minutes ago and you have a go bag in your hand.”

Neal doesn’t even bother trying to conceal it. He must look sucker punched.

The expression on Peter’s face looks like triumph. 

“You got lucky this time, Neal. Next time try to remember who your real friends are. You’re with Agent Berrigan until we get the tracking system back online,” he tosses over his shoulder.

It’s all Neal can do to keep up a calm front until he isn’t being watched.

 

“And there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, I can do, is there?” Not without incriminating himself in the process. He’s pacing the terrace like a caged animal…because that’s what he is.

“He can’t avoid Manhattan forever. We wait and we watch and we plan.” Mozzie sighs and refills his wine glass. “Neal, I just can’t believe--”

Neal turns on him angrily. “Just say it, Moz. Say ‘I can’t believe you were that stupid.’” He’s a con man and he still somehow managed to get played by a guy he’d known from day one was a con man and wanted something from him.

 

Except that as the leaves change, green to brown without ever turning gold, as Peter starts to trust him again little by little, as he falls in love with another girl who knows everything about him and loves him anyway, Neal starts to doubt if that’s what really happened.


	4. December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, apologies for not getting this done sooner. It took me a few tries to get an ending I was satisfied with, hopefully, I’m not alone. ;)

When you get conned you lose something, but Neal isn’t any worse off than he was on that first afternoon playing chess in Central Park. Peter isn’t any worse off either. There’s a part of him that hopes maybe Nate will just avoid Manhattan forever.

By the time Neal corners him, it’s bittersweet.

“You wanted this as much as I did.” Neal can’t bring himself to accuse him of having been the one who’d wanted it more. That’s what happened. Two con men, two guys who should have both known better, told The Tale and fell in love with their own fiction and if one mark had had a little bit less doubt maybe they could have pulled it off, maybe the story didn’t have to end this way.

“Some things aren’t meant to be.” There’s an immense sadness in Nate’s eyes. He’s had his own Kate’s and Peter’s and other pains, Neal can’t imagine, what it’s like to burry a child.

“We’ll always have Hell’s Kitchen.” 

Nate glances dubiously to their left and right, the irony not lost. “Romantic.”

“You said you’d lose your nerve,” Neal points out.

Nate chuckles bitterly. “I did.”

It’s terrible in that way only shady motels and low thread count sheets and a man you’re ambivalent about can be terrible and when Neal looks in the bathroom mirror afterwards he doesn’t recognize himself in the harsh florescent light. He looks so much older. He’s sure he didn’t have those creases in his forehead last December. Who is he becoming? One of the good guys or just one of the other kind of bad ones, the guys who play by the rules not because they believe in them, but just because they’re winning. 

Nate’s staring out across the water and Neal finds himself resting his head on his shoulder, lingering longer than he should. This is all about to go sideways. He doubts Nate’s a graceful loser.

“You should tell him.” That’s strange advice coming from him.

“What good would that do?” Peter’s married to Elizabeth. Neal has a girlfriend. Peter thinks of him as a friend. They’re happy. Neal has too much to lose.

He feels Nate shrug. “Confession does wonders for a guilty conscience.”

Neal takes a step back, reeling.

“Yeah, I know exactly what you were doing.” Somehow scorn looks much uglier on him than it ever did on Peter, but it’s gone in an instant. “My mother wanted me to be a priest.”

The non sequitur and the sudden change of mood kills the angry retort on Neal’s lips.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time. It didn’t take me very long to figure out it wasn’t going to help, but I stayed another year. If you’re ever hard up, I can’t recommend seminary highly enough.”

“FBI!”

 

Eight Months Ago

“I’m going to give you one more chance, Burke. Back off.”

“Are you threatening an FBI agent?”

“Or I will find out what you value most…and I will steal it.”

Peter snorts. “You’re going to try to steal my wife?” He’d pay to see that.

“What? No. What would I do with your wife?” Nate gives him what could pass for a genuinely confused look. “For that matter, what do you do with her?” Beat. “Besides tell her you have a headache.”

 

December

“You still think you’ve won, don’t you?”

He looks like a king holding court in the FBI interrogation room, utterly bored by the jesters’ antics. Damned if Peter doesn’t see Neal in twenty years in that arch of an eyebrow. “Is this the part where you give the gloating villain speech?”

“Funny, I was going to ask you the same question.” Peter pulls the piece of paper that just landed on his desk from his jacket pocket smoothing it out across the table. “How’d you pull it off?”

“Easily. You still don’t seem to be getting it. Do you need me to spell it out for you? Money makes the rules.”

Peter shakes his head. “No, I don’t think you’re ‘getting it.’ The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards…justice.” The thing Peter values most. It would be diabolically brilliant except that even Nate couldn’t have stolen what Neal hadn’t earned. He’s going to have plenty of time on his hands to figure it out. This one’s by the book, open and shut.

“There is no justice.” Not when you play judge, jury, and hangman. “There’s just revenge, Peter.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t get yours this time.” Peter refolds the pardon carefully. The system might not be perfect, but he’s not giving up on it.

“You should ask your boyfriend about that.”

And that is how Peter Burke acquired a disciplinary mark on his record for punching a suspect in custody in the face.

 

Peter’s staring into his…Neal’s lost count beer with an expression Neal remembers all too well. “I didn’t want to win like this.”

Neal shrugs, watching the crawl at the bottom of the muted TV: FBI Executive Assistant Director for Counterterrorism resigns amid corruption charges… “The bad guys lost, Peter.”

“Neal, I need to know. What did he tell you?”

Much like Peter, Nate doesn’t tell him anything, and yet Neal thinks he knows. He stares at the soft glow of the Christmas tree, the only other light in the room besides the TV, weighing his options one last time. “Nothing I’d believe unless you told me otherwise.”

“I’m telling you.” Peter’s voice nearly breaks in the middle.

Neal almost isn’t surprised by the rough lips devouring his.

“Peter, you’re drunk.” Neal pushes him away gently. Somehow he thinks Elizabeth would understand, like Sara does, like Kate did, if Peter would just talk to her, but Neal doesn’t want to win this way either, alcohol and self-loathing and guilt, rushed hand jobs and stolen kisses and half-meant lies in the closet remind him too much of someone he’d rather just forget.

Peter gets up unsteadily and pads into the kitchen swaying back to the couch with more beer for himself and an official looking envelope he dumps into Neal’s lap without comment.

Neal reads the contents twice before the meaning starts to sink in. Even when he feels the click from his anklet he still doesn’t believe it.

“You should go,” Peter says without emotion.

“So this is it?” Neal sets the thing that’s been the bane of his existence down on the coffee table. It all seems so anti-climactic.

“You should go,” Peter repeats. “If I know Nate, he’s already talked his way through security at Newark and he hates to be kept waiting.” 

Neal stares at him, the world turning upside down again, just when he thought he’d caught his balance.

Peter chuckles humorlessly. “I’ve got to hand it to you: you two make a great team. You’re both lying, cheating, sons-of-bitches.”

So he admits to having a type. “You’re the one who told me people don’t change, Peter.”

Peter looks like he’s about to swear at Neal and then he just shrugs, grimacing as he cracks open another beer. “That’s assuming you knew them to begin with.”

Neal grabs it out of his hand. “Sleep it off. I’m coming back. We’re talking about this,” like they needed to eight months ago. But first, he has unfinished business.

Peter stares balefully after him. “I want to believe you. I always want to believe you. You’re good at what you do, Neal.”

 

“Why?” It’s like some cosmic joke. Neal’s finally free…now that he has things to stay for.

“Have you never heard the expression about looking a gift horse in the mouth?”

“I’ve heard the one about Greeks bearing gifts.” Neal crosses his arms, standing squarely in Nate’s way.

“So Peter Burke doesn’t need a ‘reason’ for doing the right thing, but I do?” The cynicism is dripping.

He can find all the buttons, but he never knows when to stop pushing. That’s quite the shiner. Convenient, what happened to the guy who saw this coming a mile away, but now that Neal’s gotten a look at the other guy? Not Nate’s smoothest work.

“Do you want to go to prison?” Because at this point Neal would be more than happy to make that happen for him. If Nate thinks they’re even now, Neal’s got bad news for him.

“Really? Now?” Nate looks incredulous. “Now? Now you’re willing to screw me over?”

It starts as just a twitch at the corner of Neal’s mouth and grows into a chuckle that grows into full blown laughter.

“How could you like me?” Nate paces, running a hand through his hair. “No one likes me! Ask my team.”

“Rookie mistake, Mr. Ford.” Neal takes off his own hat, trying not to smirk as he twirls it. “You should have known I wasn’t a man of pedestrian tastes.”

Nate scowls at him. “Has anyone ever told you you’re incorrigible?” 

“Daily.”

“Prove him wrong.”

Neal snorts. “You just don’t want the competition.”

“Keep your day job, Kid. You’re good, but you’re not that good.”

Neal grins. “Point taken. I’m unrivaled as a Suit. I caught you.” Peter picked the wrong airport. It’s an easy mistake to make…when you haven’t spent three years planning how to get out of the NYC area hot. 

Nate blinks at him, looking sheepish again for a moment, as if only belatedly realizing Neal hadn’t been making an idle threat. “You’re right. This time you got me,” and then a ghost of that smirk flickers across his lips. “What are you going to do with me?”

Nothing. You beat Nate by not playing.

Neal’s going to get a six figure consulting job and he and Sara are going to buy the brownstone next door and he’s going to try to forget what it felt like, building castles in the air, balancing on the high wire, one wrong move, one wrong word away from crashing down to earth.

 

“Sorry…doubted you…was a jerk,” Peter mumbles into his neck as Neal tries to pour him into bed.

“Just forget about it,” Neal murmurs, “clean slate: today never happened.” Peter would have denied everything in the morning anyway.

“What’s wrong? What happened? Why didn’t Peter call me?” Elizabeth stands in the middle of the empty beer cans looking bewildered. Her event ran late, but not late enough for Neal to hide any evidence. 

He tells her about Peter getting suspended and not about anything else and then he makes his excuses as gracefully as he can. It is late.

 

January

“New?” Peter gestures at Neal’s head, swallowing a mouthful of bagel.

“New year, new job title, new leaf, new hat,” Neal lies companionably. “You hate it.”

Peter shakes his head. “I hate how good you look in everything. Most guys who try to wear fedoras end up looking like assholes.” 

“Correlation does not imply causation, Peter.” And then Neal does a double-take. Peter was flirting with him.

“You talked to Elizabeth.”

Peter smiles faintly. “I tried to. Before we got married. El already knew. Now,” Peter plops a thick document in front of Neal, all business again, “memorize this.”

Neal raises an eyebrow, trying to roll with the curt change of subject. “Do you still get to do that now that you’re not my boss?”

Peter breaks into a grin like a kid in a candy store. “I get to do this because I’m not your boss. It’s the Bureau’s policy on interoffice relationships.”

Neal should groan, but he can’t help grinning back. He’d known who Peter was. As much as it may drive him crazy at times, this is why they make a good team. There are bad guys on both sides. Balance of power is the basis of a just system.


End file.
